Guide Lines (instructions) Part C

Part Four: Writing Connection

For 20 points, create a "Town Poem" with your partners. Directions:

1. Create an imaginary town based on the photographs you viewed and the paragraphs you wrote from the Library of Congress collections.
2. Include 2-3 photographs of the people in the poem as well as settings you've described.
3. Put the poem directly on the group's home page along with pictures that go with it.

Here are some ideas for the content of your poem:

• Take emotional possession of the town.
• Rely on your impressions and your subjective observations.
• Let your imagination give each person, building, object its own story.
• List assumptions, hunches, observations and feelings.
• What are the town secrets?
• What is the mood or tone of the town?
• Write a poem about your town in the second person.
• You have never been to this town, but write as though you have lived there all your life.
• Note: For more information on Town Poems, consult The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing by Richard Hugo.